Elizabeth and Jesse exchanged brief looks before climbing up the short set of steps attached to the train car, pulling open the door, and bearing witness to what had unfolded inside.
Freddy was laid rather awkwardly on the floor of the narrow hallway.
Blood and some sort of clear fluid ran from his nose, which was slightly crooked.
Dark marks surrounded his eyes, giving them a bit of a raccoonish look.
His white polo shirt was pulled up halfway, revealing something that was carved into his skin.
'Maybe now that rude puppet will shut up.'
Above the words was another one of those fucking smiley faces with a round nose.
Upon looking up, they also found Freddy's ventriloquist dummy, who was hanging from the ceiling by a shoelace that was tied around his neck. His blue fur was matted with blood.
"Good Scott... what'd he even do?"
"I d-don't know..."
Jesse ran a hand through her hair.
"Uh, I'll stay here with him while you go get help?"
"O-okay."
Elizabeth hopped off the train and made her way over to the nearest payphone.
It was a good thing that you didn't have to pay for emergency calls. There was no way that her shaky hands would have been able to put coins into the coin slot.
After she had managed to choke out the appropriate information to the person on the other end, she ran back and told the rest of the troupe that Freddy had been hurt.
As soon as vehicles started pulling up, Elizabeth got back onto the train. She wrestled the door to her room open, pulled a sticky note off of the wall, got off the train yet again, and left the field without saying anything to anybody.
She started heading down the sidewalk, stuffing her hands into her pockets.
A gust of wind blew past, sending quite a few leaves spiraling towards the ground.
"Lizzy Jones..."
Elizabeth's breath hitched.
She shuddered.
She knew it was there, but she didn't turn around to face it.
She kept walking.
"Please don't ignore me, Lizzy..."
She didn't want to face it.
She really didn't want to face it.
"You're running back to Charlotte again, aren't you?"
"What do y-you think?"
"You don't like me very much, do you?"
She didn't respond.
"Lizzy... you don't like me very much, do you?"
She kept ignoring it.
Maybe if she ignored it, it'd just go away.
The creature stepped in front of her and she finally stopped.
For once, it was not obscured by shadows. Elizabeth could finally see all of it.
She could see all of the overlong bones that made up its limbs, and all of the discolored flesh loosely wrapped around them.
She could see its exposed ribcage, which was filled with eyeballs and amorphous organs.
"You know what? You don't have to answer. I know that you don't like me very much." It said. "I just don't understand why."
"Because y-you're going around attacking people c-completely unprompted!" Elizabeth sputtered out. "I don't w-want y-you to do that!"
"Are you sure? Maybe I know more about what you want than you do."
It took a step closer to her.
She felt the strong urge to take a step back in response, but she didn't.
"You've always allowed yourself to be used as a punching bag. The people who've hurt you have almost always been smaller and weaker than you... You could easily overpower them and make them regret even approaching you, but you never do... You fear the repercussions of trying to fight back... What if they only end up hurting you more?
"Maybe if you pushed past that fear, which makes you quickly brush aside any thoughts of even trying to talk back... maybe if you pushed past the voice in your head that says you deserve everything you get, you'd find that deep down... you do want to make them all feel pain..."
"No, y-you're wrong."
"How would you know, Lizzy? You seem to put up an awful lot of walls in that head of yours... walls that try their hardest to block everyone out of certain... things... including yourself." It tilted its head to the side. "Need I remind you that I am extremely well-versed about all information pertaining to you?"
"Y-yeah, well, I am too. F-freddy didn't d-deserve what y-you did to him. Neither did Laura, or Charlie, or Arlen!"
It didn't say anything.
Instead, it stared at her. It stared at her with its piercing blue eyes, and all of the eyes in its ribcage, which turned so that they were facing her.
The slight headache Elizabeth got whenever that thing started talking got a little bit worse.
After an uncomfortably long period of time, it finally spoke again.
"I'll let you go see that woman this time, Lizzy. But know that she won't be able to help you get rid of me."
It stepped aside and vanished.
Positive that it was finally gone again, Elizabeth kept walking, picking up her pace considerably.
Around ten or fifteen minutes later, she found herself standing at the entrance to an amusement park.
The sign above her, which was held up by a couple of metal poles, cast a dim red light upon her.
"Th-this must be it..."
Slowly, Elizabeth went through the entrance.
For no particular reason, she dragged her hand across one of the frigid metal poles as she passed by it.
The dying grass crunched beneath her shoes.
Not that she could really hear it over the screaming of nearby teenagers.
Elizabeth wasn't actually sure where exactly to find Charlie since she didn't tell her what her job was.
But it couldn't be that hard to find her, right?
The park wasn't all that big.
All of the obnoxiously bright flashing lights around her were a little overwhelming.
"Excuse me? Ma'am?"
She jumped slightly.
A rather burly guy with dark hair and brown eyes stepped in front of her.
"You look a little lost. Can I help you with something?"
She looked down briefly at his shirt, which was the same one that she had first seen Charlie in: dark purple with an amusement park logo plastered on the front.
"I'm l-looking for Charlie."
"Charlie, huh? She a friend of yours?"
"Uh... y-yeah? S-sure."
He pointed to one of the rides.
"You see that coaster over there? She operates it."
"Th-thanks."
Elizabeth made her way over to the roller coaster, finally spotting Charlie, who was in the middle of checking the lap bars.
"Please remain seated during the ride. Keep all parts of your body inside the ride unit at all times. Don't attempt to move the lap bar. And, y'know, have fun."
She made her way back over to the control panel and started the ride.
"Charlie!"
